Ottinger’s unusual melding of documentary and theatrical fiction opens with the kidnapping of an eccentric group of Trans-Siberian bound European tourists by a band of Mongols headed by its notorious female chieftain, Johanna d’Arc of Mongolia. Carefully bifurcated, Ottinger’s film contrasts the deliberate studio artificiality of its largely interior first half to the sweeping exteriors of the steppes that define the rest of the film. Johanna d’Arc of Mongolia offers a playful reflection on the liberatory nature of cross-cultural encounter, embodied in the budding romance between the Mongol brigand and a young Frenchwoman, while also marking an important intersection between Ottinger’s early art films and her subsequent documentaries.